


The Forest

by yours truly (abriefcandle)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (this time), Disabled Harry Potter, Fuck it the twins survive too, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry's mindscape is aesthetic, Injury Recovery, It's a mindscape thing, Legilimency (Harry Potter), Master of Death Harry Potter, Mpreg, Mute Severus Snape, Post Time Travel Fix-It, Post-War, Remus Lupin Lives, Severus Snape Lives, and this pleases me, because why not, not really tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abriefcandle/pseuds/yours%20truly
Summary: Perhaps Snape had judged Harry a little bit too quickly.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76





	The Forest

When Harry closes his eyes, he can still see it—the lifeless corpse of Severus Snape. 

Some nights, it’s hard to sleep, and he’s left to lie there, motionless,  _ remembering _ the scent of fresh blood and mangled flesh dripping with the silver of days gone by. There is nothing quite so horrifying as reliving that moment as the warmth finally faded from the dour man’s funeral-clad body.

Speaking of funerals, Snape’s was quiet. He was reluctantly interred alongside Albus Dumbledore’s memorial and laid to rest by those few of his own snakes who were not politically obligated to avoid attendance as well as the boy he had helped and hated until his very last breath: Harry Potter. 

Standing prone beneath the tearstained heavens before that marble grave and tracing the stern, elongated letters engraved there, rivulets of unadulterated water dripping down a pale finger to bleed on Snape’s name, Harry shook his head and whispered, “You failed,” before apparating away. 

But this time...this time was—no,  _ is _ different.

Even so, for someone who swore an unbreakable vow to protect him from harm, Snape didn’t do a very good job of upholding it. At least, that’s what the healers said, though Harry disagrees. They have no idea, after all, what kind of sacrifices he made in order to uphold that vow. How could they?

Which leads us to now: Harry curled up in his bed sheets as he shakes and aches with fever, squinting at the dog-eared pages of  _ All Quiet on the Western Front _ and wondering why wizards are so fucking stupid. Surely if they had put any considerable effort into the attainment of observational skills, he would not be going through the intensive potions regime around which his entire life is now organized, but truly who  _ would _ pay any attention to an unwanted orphan boy—hero or not? 

Harry Potter is little more than a legend, a myth dreamed up by those who would make a martyr of him. And boy, did Harry fall for it hook, line, and sinker—at first. He caught on rather quickly, though he allowed the games to continue since having a well-defined public image is convenient for him.

There are three knocks at the door to which Harry does not reply, barely acknowledging the familiar figure that confidently waltzes in with a crate of potion bottles in her papercut-ridden palms. Approaching his bedside, her shadow passes over the worn pages, and she lets out an amused sigh.

“Reading  _ Quidditch Through the Ages _ again, Harry?” Hermione asks, eyebrows raised. Harry shrugs and smiles at her, though the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. While the healers had forbidden him from performing magic for the time being, it had not been difficult to manually switch the book covers intended in order to obscure his most recent interest’s true nature. It’s not quite as foolproof as altering the appearance of the books with magic like usual, of course, and he has little doubt that Hermione is anything less than fully aware that his copy of  _ Quidditch Through the Ages _ has been mysteriously changing in thickness lately, but she hasn’t asked him about the phenomenon...yet. 

“What can I say? I miss flying…” Harry trails off, glancing up at his dear friend through his lashes, his eyes wide and mournful. Hermione sighs again and sets the crate down at the foot of his bed, prying the lid up with a quick spell and setting the first row of potions at his bedside. Then, she sits beside him and takes his hand in hers, pressing her free hand to his forehead and wincing at the heat she finds there—the fever is an unfortunate symptom of the combination of potions that he must take. 

Harry, however, simply turns his head aside to stare out the window at the busy muggle street below and the smoggy London sky hovering above it. Blue skies seem rarer and rarer anymore.

“I know that your recent illness has made life...difficult, but you have not survived this many years of utter nonsense to give up now,” Hermione scolds, handing him the first of his potions. 

Shaking his head, Harry closes his book and sets it aside before downing the vial’s contents. Made life “difficult,” huh? For whom, Harry can’t help but wonder, resisting the urge to glare at her. 

Hermione does have one thing right: he has no intention of giving up just yet. He’s a Potter, and there is a degree of mule-headed stubbornness that comes with the name.

“Me? Stubborn? Never!” Harry says, rolling his eyes and snorting as he downs the next potion. 

Hermione smiles, letting out a gentle laugh before running a hand through his hair and patting his head. Harry resists the urge to scowl at the condescending gesture. He’s hardly a small child to be appeased or placated with meaningless displays of artificial affection—well, perhaps that’s going too far. Hermione does care about her best friend, but that doesn’t make seeing to his health any easier.

“Of course not,” Hermione agrees before checking her watch and frowning. “I have a shift, so I need to get going, but I think Mrs. Tonks and Professor Lupin should be by with Teddy for dinner—” 

The soft whoosh of the Floo echoes up from beneath them, and Hermione frowns. “I wonder who that could be…” Then, without so much as a goodbye, she turns her back on him and stalks out into the hall. Harry sighs, shakes his head, and returns to his reading, ignoring the high-pitched shrieking that emanates through the floorboards not long after. “—needs rest! How  _ dare _ you march in here—”

The door swings open with a slam, but rather than being met with the rotund visage of Hagrid as he had been on the night of his eleventh birthday, Harry finds himself face to face with the gaunt grimace of one Severus Snape, a man who had died for him once...but not this time. 

Hermione clenches her fists, her cheeks flushed, and scowls as Snape strides into the room, his dark robes fluttering theatrically behind him. Then, the man pauses, his glower fading at the sight of Harry’s small, sickly figure, draped in bandages and thin as a wand. Flushed with fever, Harry smiles.

“Hello, Professor,” Harry says softly. “I believe that we have much to discuss.”

Severus’ lips twitch as he unconsciously rests a hand on his own bandages, the ones encircling his neck like a noose. Drawing his wand, he scrawls a message in the air: “No, really?” 

Harry’s laugh tinkles like a windchime, and Hermione’s eyes pop wide. Not once has he laughed like that since...since  _ before _ . Biting her lip, she looks between her former professor and her best friend, unsure of what to say or do. She had thought Snape would aggravate Harry, but if anything, Harry actually seems  _ happy _ to see the person he once considered the bane of his existence.

“I’ll...just leave you two be, then. I’m certain the professor is capable of showing himself out, but I will reiterate—if you do  _ anything _ to strain him, then you will be hearing from not only me, Ron, Mrs. Weasely, and the twins but also Mrs. Tonks, am I understood?” Hermione hisses before parting. Harry rolls his eyes as Snape raises an eyebrow. To be fair, Andy  _ is _ a force of nature, but still...

She’s also a  _ Black _ , he realizes.

Suppressing a shudder, Snape tugs an envelope out from the inside of his robe and places it firmly within Harry’s shaking grasp before withdrawing from his bedside to hover awkwardly in the corner. 

_ Mr. H. J. Potter-Black _

_ The Master Bedroom, _

_ 12 Grimmauld Place, _

_ Islington, _

_ LONDON _

Harry longingly runs his fingers over the thick envelope and its carefully inked letters before flipping it over to examine the ornate arms of Hogwarts inscribed into the red wax sealing it shut.

“...I suppose I was not clear enough to Headmistress McGonagall the first time that I turned down her offer to return about my reasons for doing so,” Harry says, clenching his jaw. Snape just sighs and gives him a look. “Fine, fine—I’ll open it,” Harry snaps, glaring back at his professor, who smirks.

_ HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY _

_ Headmaster: Severus Snape _

_ (Order of Merlin, First Class) _

_ Dear Mr. Potter-Black, _

_ We are pleased to inform you that as a result of your personal circumstances, you are eligible under code no. 7,126,785 of the Hogwarts School Charter to receive alternative education in the form of either correspondence schooling or an apprenticeship with an amenable staff member, of which, you shall certainly find, there are plenty. As you can see, we are, indeed, capable of making allowances for those physically unable to traverse the castle’s “bullshit architecture,” as you so eloquently put it.  _

_ Please send your response in person or by owl. _

_ Yours sincerely, _

_ Minerva McGonagall _

_ Deputy Headmistress _

At this, Harry frowns openly, his eyebrows scrunching together. So what, a guy saves the wizarding world, nearly dies, is severely injured, and still can’t get a bloody break? Did she not even consider the fact that he might not be comfortable returning to the castle after...after the battle? He frowns.

“Still the headmaster, hm? I didn’t think you’d particularly enjoyed the position,” Harry says, setting the letter aside and sighing. “Then again, I can’t pretend to understand the workings of your mind.”

“Can’t you?” Snape writes with his wand before crossing his arms. 

“Touché,” Harry relents, running a hand through his hair and grimacing. “I...I still don’t…” Harry falters. Before he can finish his thought, Harry locks eyes with Snape and feels a terse knock against his mental barriers. Then, he sighs. “...I suppose I can hear you out, though I make no promises.”

The mind of Harry Potter is nothing like Snape would have expected. 

Upon requesting entrance past the thin but flexible membrane enveloping the exterior of Harry’s mind, Snaoe finds that the silvery substance ripples at his touch, waves of mercury flickering outward from the point of contact. He reluctantly steps through the semi-fluid into...a dense fog? 

There is nothing for miles but gray, wet, and cold in every direction. 

There is a soft sucking sound, and Snape turns back to see the barrier reform before vanishing. Clenching his jaw, he glances around, reluctantly impressed. It seems that the boy has a talent for occlumency after all. Scowling, he reaches for his wand just as a green light flickers into existence.

“This way, sir…” A familiar if distant voice echoes on the wind, though significantly younger than he recalls. Snape pauses, narrowing his eyes at the light. “...I shall grant you safe passage here...”

Wand drawn, Snape takes a few hesitant steps forward before smacking face first into a tree. He takes a step back and shakes off his stupor before muttering a series of curses. Then, he shudders. 

There is something  _ wrong _ about this forest. 

Snape runs into another few trees on his way to the green light, grumbling about barely being able to see an inch in front of his face. It doesn’t take him long to decipher the cause of his unease—despite the breeze, he can’t discern the rustle of leaves. The only breath present is his own. Everything is dead. He can, however, feel the crunch of pine needles beneath his boots.

“Do not fear…” The light croons. 

Stepping closer, Snape passes through a break in the fog in a sphere around a sea green mason jar resting in a plain wreath with a layer of glittering peridots at the bottom of it upon which sage is sprinkled. A strange fluid has been poured over the mixture that refracts the glow of the chartreuse firefly lights rising from the strange concoction’s bubbling surface. In it rests a crystal stalk, growing upward from its bed of stone and sage, pulsating “...I shall dispel the darkness within my reach.”

Gently, Snape lifts the jar from the wreath by the metal chain binding the edge of the jar, the lights wafting upward to linger about his head. “...You shall find him at the end of the eastern path.” 

Then, the jar begins to swing gently eastward like a dowsing pendulum. Snape follows its direction.

Not long later, Snape falls upon a small stream that he continues to follow eastward, eventually crossing it as it turns from his course. He continues to follow the lantern until, at last, he arrives in a vast clearing where the fog dissolves upward to reveal the land’s provenance. 

In the center of the clearing is a circle of candles inscribed around a bisected triangle in which another circle is inscribed: the sign of Grindelwald, Snape realizes, frowning. Straddling the bisector is a plain elder writing desk stacked with piles of parchment, where Harry sits in a regal, plush armchair, chewing on the end of a quill and staring at a document. Directly across from him stands a plain elder door frame, and another two identical thresholds occur at equidistant points on his right and left, breaking the ring of candles. The three door frames contain no doors, however.

“Mr. Potter,” Snape drawls with his actual voice rather than a magical scrawl of letters.

Harry looks up with a smile, except that this is not the Harry Potter that Snape knows. 

This Harry Potter is younger, fifteen at most, and lacks the premature aging which plagues the war’s survivors. His healthy skin is unblemished, lacking even his infamous scar, and his eyes seem to glow with power, unhindered by the constraints of his round NHS glasses. His dark hair, long and luscious, is knotted into a braid, several untamed strands hanging in frizzy curls around his face. Rolling up the sleeves of his loose gray robe, he sets down the quill in his left hand and snaps his fingers, a stiff, black, straight-backed chair popping into existence in front of him, but Snape hesitates.

“Please, step through and sit,” Harry says, gesturing for the older man to cross into the circle and join him. “As you can see, I’ve been practicing my handwriting. I’m still not, uh, really used to using my left hand for everything, but I’m in the process of adjusting. I should be able to start practicing wand motions soon, since my wrist strength is improving, but, uh, I won’t be casting for a while.” 

Harry bites his lip, but Snape stares, struggling to take in Harry Potter’s inner self—the mental body, after all, is often extremely distinct from the physical body, though they may share similarities. 

The black-clad Snape, for instance, is taller and has white hair, bleached by years of stress and tied back in a stern bun; furthermore, he dons minimalistic dueling robes beneath a potioneer’s coat. 

“Am I to understand that your healers have yet to clear you for magic use?” Snape replies, appalled, as he sits, enclosing the lantern in white knuckles. Such bans usually last a few unbearable weeks after release from St. Mungo’s, not well over a  _ month _ . Snape resists the urge to shudder.

“Yes,” Harry replies, massaging his forehead before reaching for a large ceramic mug with a teabag dangling from its rim—its tag marked with the sign of  _ Grindelwald _ , again. “Among many other restrictions. I’m on bedrest until October, best case scenario, and afterwards, I will be confined to my rooms for...a while. There will be physical therapy sessions and all sorts of doctor’s, er...healer’s appointments for the next few years. They say I will never regain full mobility in my legs, though they are going to make more of a recovery than my hand.” He clenches his right hand, sighing.

Then, Harry takes a sip of tea and reclines into his chair.

“I...can see where you’d be _ reluctant _ to continue your education,” Snape says, setting the lantern down atop the desk. Harry snorts at this, earning himself a glare from the older man. 

“I do have an offer to make you, however,” Snape continues, eyeing the oversized, gaudy Weasley Christmas sweater drowning Harry’s minute frame and the odd bulge in his abdomen. “As you have already noticed, I am the acting Headmaster until the school board hires a replacement, which, while involving much paperwork, is otherwise not a particularly demanding job, involving only a certain amount of...politicking and disciplinary intervention. Afterwards, I will only be contracted to provide quality potions for the school. Effectively, of all the current staff at Hogwarts, I have the most free time to devote to your education and care, which I understand would be a stipulation of your return.”

“You? Apprentice  _ me _ ?” Harry asks. “Because your tutelage has done me so much good in the past! You are not a patient man, and patience is what I need. Unless you can provide that, I can’t—”

“I assure you, Mr. Potter, that I have patience in spades. I’ll admit that my attempts at educating you have not always been fruitful and, in fact, have often been rather disastrous, but I believe that I was hardly the sole instigator of our numerous...conflicts. I am willing to, at the very least, try. Furthermore, I am not your craftmaster, merely an aide in ensuring that you are able to complete your NEWTs. We will not be bound to each other for more than a year, I imagine. In the worst case scenario, you may, at any point, choose to complete your education via correspondence instead.”

“And...what about where I’d stay? I don’t think that living in the dorms would be good, I mean, with both my health and...well, I have no interest in being  _ mobbed _ by my dorm mates.” Harry shudders, continuing, “I just...I don’t think I can answer any more questions right now, y’know?”

“You shall find, Mr. Potter,” Snape begins, suppressing a smirk before continuing, “that Hogwarts is more than capable of providing accommodations suitable to your needs. As an apprentice, you would be given chambers adjacent to those of your chosen master with an alternative entrance on the ground floor. We are wizards, are we not? Doors, naturally, can be made to lead to many different places.” Snape’s eyes flicker towards the empty threshold on his left, and Harry chuckles lightly.

“True,” Harry says, smiling condescendingly down at Snape. 

Before Snape can reply, the doorframe behind him begins to hum and emanate a bright white light. 

Cursing, Harry reaches across the desk to roughly grab Snape and tackle him to the side, the lantern flying from his grasp, just as an avalanche of papers slides through the portal to bury the desk. 

Snape, pressed against the grass by the curve of Harry’s body, stares wide-eyed at the chaos occuring behind him. Despite being an accomplished occlumens, he’s never seen anything like this. 

As the last of the papers landslide through, a paper airplane gently loops to land on Harry’s head. 

Mumbling curses, Harry unfolds the plane, scowling deeply at its contents before crumpling it and tossing it back over his shoulder. “I swear I will hex that bastard the next time I see him…”

All of this should have been rather concerning to the dour headmaster, but with Harry’s legs intertwined with his, one chemical-stained hand tucked around the boy’s waist and the other bracing against his bulging abdomen, the only thing Snape can do is feel the pulsing heat and rhythmic kicks of tiny feet against his palm. He meets Harry’s death-dyed eyes with an openly gaping jaw, shocked.

“How in Merlin’s name…?”

“You know very well that we do not choose our own bodies on this plane, Professor, and I am reliably informed that pregnancy happens to be a symbol of great change and personal growth, among other things,” Harry sighs, easily returning to his feet and offering his proposed master a hand up. “Now, if that is all, I need to do... _ something _ about this.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair as Snape reluctantly accepts the hand. “I will write to you with my decision by the end of the week.”

“Farewell, Mr. Potter,” Snape says, nodding stiffly. With a flick of the wrist, Harry summons the fallen lantern from the grasses and back into his palm. Then, drawing the glowing green crystal from its depths, he strings it on an imagined string and carefully ties it around the older man’s neck.

“Goodbye, sir,” Harry replies, smiling, before laying a palm against Snape’s chest and pushing him backwards. The air around him ripples as his vision fades to fog, the crystal forming a green shield of light against his skin before dissolving as he passes through the tides of Harry’s external barriers. 

Snape blinks.

He is standing in the master bedroom of No. 12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, exactly where he had been but a few seconds before, judging by the time on his plain black wristwatch. 

Harry, however, is curled up in the wrinkled sheets, one hand crumpling a letter and the other tucked under a pillow, as his eyes flicker shut and he retreats into the safety of his mind. 

Snape can only stare.

Perhaps the boy—no, he’s a man now, isn’t he?—the man isn’t as incompetent as he thought. Snape hums before turning on his heel and heading for the Floo. It seems he has some memories to review.


End file.
